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''The Sleeper Awakes'' is a
dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...
n
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
novel by English writer
H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...
title page displays on four lines that suggest a subtitle: ''The Sleeper Awakes''; A Revised Edition of “When the Sleeper Wakes”; By H. G. Wells; 1899. Library of Congress Catalog uses the subtitle.


Publication history

''When the Sleeper Wakes'' was originally published as a serial in ''
The Graphic ''The Graphic'' was a British weekly illustrated newspaper, first published on 4 December 1869 by William Luson Thomas's company Illustrated Newspapers Ltd. Thomas's brother Lewis Samuel Thomas was a co-founder. The premature death of the latt ...
'' (London) and ''
Harper's Weekly ''Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization'' was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor, ...
'' (New York), with illustrations by Henri Lanos. Both editions appeared in the first 18 issues of 1899, with Saturday dates 7 January to 5 May. When the book was about to be reprinted again, Wells used this opportunity "to make a number of excisions and alterations", and changed its title to ''The Sleeper Awakes''. As he explains in the preface of the 1910 edition, he was overworked and wrote under considerable pressure when he authored the original version simultaneously with another novel called ''
Love and Mr. Lewisham ''Love and Mr Lewisham'' (subtitled "The Story of a Very Young Couple") is a 1900 novel set in the 1880s by H. G. Wells. It was among his first fictional writings outside the science fiction genre. Wells took considerable pains over the manuscri ...
'', in addition to his journalistic obligations. Before going on a "badly needed holiday" to Italy, he felt he had to complete one of the two novels, and so rushed the ending on ''When the Sleeper Wakes'' just to finish it, hoping to return to it when he came back to England and before it went into print. But when he got home he fell seriously ill, and after forcing himself to complete ''Love and Mr. Lewisham'', he never got the chance to do any rewriting of ''When the Sleeper Wakes'' before it was published. What he disliked about it was the construction of the story and the rushed latter part. But so many years have passed that he claimed he could no longer identify with his younger self, and so the work felt too remote for him to do any significant reconstruction. Instead he played the role of the "editorial elder brother" and cut some passages that felt redundant, improved certain "clumsy phrases and repetitions", straightened out some ambivalences at the end, and removed all signs of any love interest between characters.''The Sleeper Awakes, by H. G. Wells''
(HTML format). Project Gutenberg Ebook #12163. 2004; updated 2018. Retrieved 2020-04-22. In the 1910 edition Wells also brought the ‘flying machines’ up to date. The short story " A Story of the Days To Come" (1897) is a forerunner of the novel, being a tale set within the same future society.


Plot

: ''(as revised, 1910)'' Graham, an Englishman living in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
in 1897, takes drugs to cure
insomnia Insomnia, also known as sleeplessness, is a sleep disorder in which people have trouble sleeping. They may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, ...
and falls into a coma. He wakes up in 2100. He later learns that he has inherited huge wealth and that his money has been put into a trust. Over the years, the trustees, the "White Council", have used his wealth to establish a vast political and economic world order. When Graham wakes, he is disoriented. The people around him had not expected him to wake up, and are alarmed. Word spreads that the "Sleeper" has awakened. A mob gathers around the building and demands to see the fabled Sleeper. The people around Graham will not answer his questions. They place Graham under
house arrest In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if all ...
. Graham learns that he is the legal owner and master of most of the world. Rebels led by Ostrog help Graham to escape. They say that the people need Graham's leadership to rise against the White Council. Unconvinced, but unwilling to remain a prisoner, Graham goes with them. Graham arrives at a massive hall where the workers have gathered to prepare for the revolution. They march against the White Council but are soon attacked by the state police. In the confusion, Graham is separated from the revolutionaries. He meets an old man who tells him the story of the Sleeper - the White Council invested his wealth to buy the industries and political entities of half the world, establishing a
plutocracy A plutocracy () or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any established ...
and sweeping away parliament and the monarchy. The Sleeper is just a figurehead. The old man thinks that the Sleeper is a made-up figure used to brainwash the population. Graham meets Ostrog, who says that the rebels have won and that the people are demanding that the Sleeper should rule. Ostrog retains power while Graham becomes his puppet ruler. Graham gets interested in aeroplanes and learns how to fly. He sees from the air that no-one lives in the country or small towns any more, all agriculture being run like industry; and that there are now only four huge cities in Britain, all powered by huge wind-mills. His carefree life ends when Helen Wotton tells him that, for the lower class, the revolution has changed nothing. Graham questions Ostrog who admits that the lower classes are still dominated and exploited, but he defends the system. It emerges that Ostrog only wanted to take power for himself and has used the revolution and Graham to do so. Ostrog admits that in other cities the workers have continued to rebel even after the fall of the White Council. Ostrog has used a black African police force to get the workers back in line. Graham is furious and demands that Ostrog keep his police out of London. Ostrog agrees. Graham decides to examine this new society for himself. Graham visits London in disguise to see how the workers live. Their lives are ghastly. Unskilled workers toil in factories, paid in food for each day's work, with no job security. They speak a dialect so strong that Graham cannot understand them. Industrial diseases are rife. Workers wear uniforms of different colour according to their trade. The family unit no longer exists and children are cared for in huge institutions. Lives are dominated by "babble machines" which spread news and "pleasure cities" where unspecified joys are available. "Euthanasy" is considered normal. Graham learns that Ostrog has ordered his troops to London. Graham confronts Ostrog, who tries to arrest Graham. The workers rise up again and help Graham to escape. He meets Helen and learns that it was she who told the public about Ostrog's treachery. Graham leads the liberation of London. Ostrog escapes and joins his troops who are flying to London. His men still hold a few airports. The workers find anti-aircraft guns, but they need time to set them up. The revolutionaries have only one aircraft; Graham gives away all of his wealth to the rebels and proceeds to fly the one aircraft against the invaders, bringing some of them down. The revolutionaries get the anti-aircraft guns working and start to shoot down the invaders. Graham attacks Ostrog's aeroplane but fails. Graham's aeroplane crashes.


Themes

Themes include socialism; the betrayal of revolution; and how an elite can manipulate a population both by oppression and impoverishment on the one hand, and by the use of technology and provision of pleasure on the other. In this respect, the book has elements explored later both in ''
Brave New World ''Brave New World'' is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarch ...
'' by
Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxley ...
and ''
Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...
'' by
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
.


Reception

Floyd C. Gale ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Edit ...
of ''
Galaxy Science Fiction ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editi ...
'' said of ''The Sleeper Awakes'' despite the "impossibly timid" and outdated science, "The worth of the story lies in its human values ... This is 'Young Wells' at his non-Utopian best".


Proposed film

In the late 1960s,
George Pal George Pal (born György Pál Marczincsak; ; February 1, 1908 – May 2, 1980) was a Hungarian-American animator, film director and producer, principally associated with the fantasy and science-fiction genres. He became an American citizen after ...
wanted to make a film of the novel. He heard
American International Pictures American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing fi ...
had the rights and offered to buy it from them. They invited him to make the film for them. However, no film resulted.


Influence

Aspects of the novel's storyline are similar to the plot of the
Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...
1973 film '' Sleeper''.James Robert Parish, Michael R. Pitts. ''The great science fiction pictures: Volume 1'', Scarecrow Press, 1977. Pg. 298: "Iconoclastic film star /filmmaker Woody Allen turned his comedic genius to a satirical look into the future with a storyline that owes a nod of gratitude to HG Wells' When the Sleeper Awakes." Pulp writer
Harry Stephen Keeler Harry Stephen Keeler (November 3, 1890 – January 22, 1967) was a prolific but little-known American fiction writer, who developed a cult following for his eccentric mysteries. He also wrote science fiction. Biography Born in Chicago in 1 ...
took the idea further in a 1914 story called "John Jones' Dollar", in which a solar system's economy is built around a single silver dollar left to accumulate until the year 2921 to the "astounding" sum of $6.3 trillion, financing an interplanetary socialist paradise. It is often claimed that
Buck Rogers Buck Rogers is a science fiction adventure hero and feature comic strip created by Philip Francis Nowlan first appearing in daily US newspapers on January 7, 1929, and subsequently appearing in Sunday newspapers, international newspapers, books ...
was inspired by this story. The ''
Futurama ''Futurama'' is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of the professional slacker Philip J. Fry, who is cryogenically preserved for 1000 years a ...
'' episode "
A Fishful of Dollars "A Fishful of Dollars" is episode six in the first season of '' Futurama''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 27, 1999. The episode was written by Patric Verrone and directed by Ron Hughart and Gregg Vanzo. Pame ...
" is loosely based upon Wells's novel. The main character
Philip J. Fry Philip J. Fry, commonly known by his surname, is a fictional character and the protagonist of the animated series '' Futurama''. He is voiced by Billy West using a version of his own voice as he sounded when he was 25. He is a slacker delivery ...
, who was cryogenically frozen and revived in the 31st Century, discovers that his bank account has continued to accrue interest over the course of a thousand years.


References


External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sleeper Awakes, The 1910 British novels 1910 science fiction novels Novels by H. G. Wells British science fiction novels Social science fiction Dystopian novels Novels about time travel Novels set in London Aviation novels Rip Van Winkle-type stories British novels adapted into television shows Novels first published in serial form